Transcript

This week there have been more rumblings along the fault line of sexuality in the churches. In the United States, Bishops of the US Episcopal Church have called a halt to the blessing of same-sex unions and the consecration of new bishops until the Church's General Convention meets next year. The US bishops have expressed 'regret' and offered 'repentance' for 'breaching the bonds of affection' within the global Anglican Communion, when the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2003.

But for some within the Communion, expressions of regret are not enough. An Anglican bishop in Uganda has announced that he's refusing $350,000 of funding to people with AIDS in his diocese, because the money comes from a US diocese that supported the election of Gene Robinson.

Meanwhile in Australia, there are claims that the Uniting Church could be experiencing the early symptoms of its own meltdown over matters around sexuality. The Uniting Church's position on same-sex relationships is one of enlightened tolerance. It says that homosexuality is not, of itself, morally good or bad; the issue is how we conduct the relationships that we're in. When it comes to clergy, the church leaves it up to individual presbyteries to decide whether or not they can accept the ordination of a gay or lesbian minister.

Last week the Reforming Alliance, a conservative group within the Uniting Church, issued a statement indicating that in spite of this live-and-let-live approach, the church is beginning to show signs of serious division. The Reforming Alliance reports that nearly 6-1/2-thousand members have left the church since 1997, and 119 congregations have split. Over 40 ministers have resigned or retired over the issue, and 40 new congregations have formed outside the Uniting Church. And at a time when all the mainline churches in Australia are experiencing depleted numbers, this comes as ominous news.

Reverend Dr Max Champion is a Uniting Church minister at Mount Waverley in Victoria; he's also Chairman of the Reforming Alliance.

Max Champion: I think this is particularly serious because the question of sexuality go very much to the heart of who we are as human beings, and we're well aware that all of us have our frailties and our failings, considerably so, whether it be in sexuality or any other area of life. And so the invitation in the church is always to those to come to understand and rejoice in the grace of God, and therefore have our lives transformed.

I think the problem in this case is that if you go ahead and endorse behaviour, which you would do in ordaining homosexual ministers, endorse behaviour which is clearly not something that is set forth in the Biblical witness, then you've moved to a different level I think.

David Rutledge: But my understanding is that what the Uniting Church Assembly determined in 2003 was that it's up to individual presbyteries to decide on the suitability of candidates for ministry, and that no congregation will have a minister imposed on them, that they can't in good conscience accept. Why is that an unacceptable position?

Max Champion: It's unacceptable because it is not something that's akin to whether someone has a different personality or whether they have different gifts for ministry, it's about the nature of who we are as human beings. And the Christian tradition holds that we're created male and female, and that is prior to any law, it's prior to any personality, to race, or anything like that. And it is so fundamental that it's not a matter that should be left up to presbyteries.

David Rutledge: What about the position of the Reforming Alliance within the Uniting Church? I understand some 40 new congregations have formed outside the Uniting Church over the past few years. How tempted are you to join them?

Max Champion: I'm not tempted to join them myself. The Reforming Alliance has three different strands actually: one that wants to continue to work for reform within the structures of the Uniting Church; one which is looking at alternative structures within it, so that there can be a greater freedom to exercise what you might call reform faith; and the third one is the group that says "Well we think we should go". And some people have already gone, and others are waiting until the next Assembly in the middle of next year. But that's certainly not a temptation that I have myself.

David Rutledge: Why not? Why do you want to stay within the Church?

Max Champion: I think it's very important to continue to put issues of a theological nature, and to resist pressures that I think in our culture and somewhat unwittingly perhaps within the Church, we're accepting that sexuality is really a right that we have to exercise according to our own lights. I think it's important to keep putting that point, not only for the sake of the Church, but also for the wider community.

David Rutledge: But people have pointed out that the New Testament certainly has very little to say on the topic of sexual orientation. It has a great deal to say on other matters, like how we use our money, how we treat others in our relationships. Isn't it possible that groups like Reforming Alliance risk becoming obsessed with sexuality, or certainly far more concerned about sexuality than the Bible appears to be?

Max Champion: Well that's a common complaint I think David, but I don't think it's that way at all. This issue has been put on the agenda not by us, it has been put there by those who are supportive of the pro-gay agenda, and it's responding to that is what we're trying to do. It is true that many people within the Reforming Alliance have just said, 'We draw a line under this, we know what we think and we're going to do what we can to get on with the mission of the church.' And that is in fact what all of us want to do, but the issue keeps being pushed back to us because of the way in which it's been handled in the Church. This would also raise huge problems for the Aboriginal Congress and for the ethnic churches. They have been the strongest in their opposition; they have been quite firm all the way through, that as far as they're concerned, this is not simply a cultural issue and that is often the point that's put to them by some of those of us who are not like an ethnic or Aboriginal, that is, that this is really a cultural issue, and that eventually they'll catch up with so-called enlightened ways of thinking. They have re-stated the Congress, the Aboriginal Congress, and migrant ethnic churches, that as far as they're concerned, this is primarily an issue as to how one understands the wonderful design of our creation which is attested in Old and New Testament.

David Rutledge: Max Champion, Chairman of the Reforming Alliance in the Uniting Church.

The Reverend Terence Corkin is General Secretary of the Uniting Church's National Assembly. He says that the Reforming Alliance's figures of 6-1/2-thousand members leaving the church are exaggerated, and he denies that the church is in decline, either morally or numerically.

Terence Corkin: The Uniting Church is a church that wants to be embracing of a broad understanding of Christianity and to enable people with a wide variety of views to be seen as respected and valued members, and so for that reason alone, it's sad when people feel that the views they hold, they don't feel there's a fit there. But talk about the Uniting Church being in decline is grossly exaggerated. For example, in the last five or six years we've had over 40 ministers from other denominations who wanted to come and join our church and be Ministers in our church. We've got more people entering our theological colleges this year to train as Ministers than we did last year. There's a vibrance in life in the Uniting Church, which includes congregations coming into the Uniting Churches, whole congregations, from migrant communities or from other backgrounds. So it's an exaggerated claim to say that the Uniting Church is on some slippery slide.

David Rutledge: Would you say then that opposition within the church to the church's current position on sexuality is negligible then, as far as danger to the future of the church is concerned?

Terence Corkin: What the Uniting Church is wrestling with is the question of when you have a significant difference of opinion, how do you deal with it. And there are people in our church who think that the way to deal with it is that you establish one position for the whole church. But the overwhelming majority of people at our assembly in 2003, about 90% of the 280 voting members, said that isn't the answer. That the answer for a church when there is significant disagreement of opinion, having worked on it for a long time, becomes a point where you say 'We have to live with that difference, and we have to let the practical decisions be made in another place at a local level, by the case-by-case basis.' We're affirming the grassroots decision-making authority of our people. That is where people get to have a say, and they're actually getting to have a say at the point where it really matters.

David Rutledge: A number of Indonesian congregations have said that they may withdraw from the Uniting Church if the Assembly endorses the gay and lesbian clergy next year at the 2006 Assembly. Aboriginal and Islander congregations have said that they can't accept gay and lesbian clergy anywhere within the church, within their own presbyteries or outside them. How is the church responding to these concerns?

Terence Corkin: Officers of the Assembly and Moderators in Synods in many parts of the church's life, are in regular conversation with our indigenous members and members from other cultures. We're listening very closely to what they're saying. There are a range of voices within migrant communities on this issue, as there is within the rest of the church.

David Rutledge: It was suggested on this program recently that the Uniting Church had lost some of the social clout that it had in the '70s and '80s. I wonder if you agree, and if you think that choosing not to adopt a single unifying position on issues like homosexuality, adds to this general sense that the Church isn't perhaps offering the bold prophetic voice that it used to, particularly as issues around sexuality are increasingly coming to be seen as human rights issues.

Terence Corkin: The place of the church in society is an interesting conversation to be had and there are lots of entry points for the Christian churches to contribute to public debate, and participate in the public domain. In terms of this issue, we have as an Assembly, wrestled with what is most helpful to our church, and to make a value-laden decision about that for our own life. We have not sought to address this in terms of what it allows us to say to the public domain, it for us is fundamentally an issue about our understanding of what a Christian community looks like when they have difference, and the Christian community that is marked by respect for different points of view, giving room for individual conscience, and allowing people to continue to find those things that they have in common, rather than just emphasise what they don't agree on.

David Rutledge: But what it sounds like you're describing is the church withdrawing into itself and removing itself from dialogue with the broader society.

Terence Corkin: The Uniting Church could never be accused of withdrawing from engagement with the wider society both through its community services and through its social justice and its other activities. No, the Uniting Church in this matter is aware that for a lot of people in our community, the issue of gender relationships is seen as a social justice issue, but we have to address it in the first instance about developing what our convictions are. What's clearly acknowledged by everyone is that we are not agreed as a community on what the position should be on persons in committed same-gender relationships being Ministers. That is clearly the case for our church, so it would be presumptuous of us to purport to speak to an external party on that matter, but in terms of the social justice issues, the Uniting Church is well on the record for supporting people involved in same-gender relationships, being involved in normal civil rights, being safe from harassment and vilification. We tackle it from the justice point of view at a number of angles, but in terms of presenting matter, we're asking it of ourselves for ourselves.

David Rutledge: Terence Corkin, General Secretary of the National Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, on the line there from Perth.

And that's it from us this week. Thanks once again to Noel Debien and John Diamond. I'm David Rutledge, join me again next week.

Guests

Max Champion

Chairman, The Reforming Alliance (Uniting Church in Australia)

Terence Corkin

General Secretary, The Uniting Church in Australia National Assembly

Credits

Presenter

David Rutledge

The Religion Report is an archived program which is no longer broadcast